


Tomorrow

by Sorryimnotthatkindofdoctor



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Related, Episode Tag, First Kiss, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, advanced thanatology, episode coda, episode s13ep5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 01:15:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12877047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorryimnotthatkindofdoctor/pseuds/Sorryimnotthatkindofdoctor
Summary: Cas wastes no time in dealing with Dean’s disregard for his own life once he comes back.





	Tomorrow

Sam is the first one to move after Cas turns around, moving forward to wrap the angel in a hug. That jolts Dean. Fuck. It was true. Sam could see him & feel him. For a bit, Dean had worried that the doc’s ghost had done something to his brain or that he had just finally gone off the deep end from needing it so bad.

Once Sam releases Cas, Dean is striding forward. The sound of his hands clapping around Cas & smacking his back is like gunshots. He hears Cas grunt softly before those arms are wrapping around him in return. And he just holds on, not saying anything.

Dean doesn’t even ask how Cas is back. He can’t. Not now. He doesn’t want to know what deals were made or who owes what or how long the angel is back. He can’t deal with that right now. His world has been turned to Hell – worse than Hell, if he’s being honest. And he should know. He was close to throwing it all away. Wasn’t even going to fight Billie on not letting him go back. He told Sam he just needed a win. Something good.

And here it was.

Dean wasn’t about to ask how or why or for how long. He can’t. Right now, he just needs to revel in the fact that it’s happen. That Cas is back. Here.

With him.

Sam drives them to a nearby motel & Dean doesn’t even say anything. Fuck, if he tried to drive right now…

It should feel weird to have Cas in the backseat again for the simple fact that he’d been dead. Been gone. Maybe it’s because for Dean, the concept of Death has always felt like an acquaintance rather than bizarre. And that was even before he’d shared a pizza with Death & flirted (was what he & Billie did flirting? He really wasn’t sure anymore) with the new Death.

Dean doesn’t even realize that Sam’s bought two rooms until he opens one door then goes through a connecting one. He says something about calling to check on Jack & then the door snicks shut, leaving him & Cas in the room together.

“You smell of death,” Cas says from his place near the door.

“Been a long few days.” Dean shrugs, half sniffing at his shoulder. At least he didn’t smell like stale beer & stripper sweat anymore.

“No,” Cas answers, stepping closer. His eyes are focused on Dean’s face. The hunter stands taller under the weight of it. It feels familiar. Like so  long ago in that barn covered in wards & sigils, or Bobby’s kitchen in the dark. The gaze of an angel. And an angry one, at that.

“You smell. Of Death.”

Dean swallows & damn it all to hell if he can’t feel his face getting hotter. He licks his lips. This is not how he’d pictured Cas coming back to him. In those moments when he’d been seven beers deep & on his third listen-through of the mix tape he’d made for Cas, he’d thought about the angel coming back to them… him. Of holding Cas in his arms & finally saying all those things he should have. The things he wants to say now.

But Cas is mad. Dean can tell. He shakes his head, peeling his coat off as if maybe that’ll get the stink of whatever it is Cas can smell off him.

“It’s a hard gig. You know that.” The words die out in Dean’s mouth as his mind suddenly replays the view of Cas going up on his toes, an angel blade coming through his chest & light leaving his eyes.

“No,” Cas says again & takes another step, bringing him in close enough that Dean could touch him if he’d just reach out. But Dean just stands there, watching as Cas steps again, the toes of their shoes actually touching. “You smell of Death. Of the veil between worlds. You have to spend time in the presence of Death to smell like you do.”

Dean can see Cas looking him over. Looking for the wounds. The limp. The bandages or blood. The sign that Dean had been beaten & battered enough to actually die & be with Death. When he doesn’t find it, those eyes are back on him & Dean stares right back, jaw set.

“How is it that you came to be in the presence of Death, Dean?” Cas asks, his voice flat.

“I did the job,” Dean answers. He’ll be damned if he admits to anyone that his voice isn’t anywhere as controlled as Cas’.

“Dean…”

“No.” Dean backs up a step, a hand raised to wave Cas’ words off. “No. You do not get to lecture me about this shit. I’m not the stupid son of a bitch who charged the God damned devil and… and…” Dean stops, turning around & dragging a hand down his face.

“I did not go after Lucifer with the intention of dying,” Cas says & Dean is glad he’s facing away from the angel. He knows his face would give away just how close to the mark those words hit.

“I didn’t aim on dying either,” Dean says, turning. “Or, not on staying dead.”

The air crackles around them & for a moment, Dean wonders if Cas came back all powered up. This is all going wrong. He keeps thinking he should say all that shit that was kept bottled up between them, but each time he looks at Cas, he just sees him angry.

No, more than angry. Disappointed. Cas is disappointed. In him.

Somehow, that hurts more than when Cas had been dead.

“You deliberately put yourself in harm’s way…” Cas shakes his head, his hands tight at his sides.

“That’s the job,” Dean says again, falling back on what he’s always used when he’s been down. The job. Even when he’d lost his belief in it, the job had given him something to hit back at.

“Your job is to fight,” Cas hisses. “To live. The world needs you alive.” There’s that again. The idea that he’s something special & Dean can’t handle much more of that.

“Eventually, the world’s gonna have to find someone else,” he says, the humor in his voice almost normal.

Cas grabs his shirt, spinning him around completely to face him again, drawing him close. Dean’s hands move up on instinct, landing on the angel’s arms. It’s almost the embrace he’d imagined those nights he’d lay in bed, playing over in his mind what he’d give up for just one last chance to feel this & actually make it count for something.

Dean’s so damned tired of hugs only happening when people don’t expect to survive or when they somehow manage to anyway.

“There is no one else,” Cas says, his eyes dark & so focused on Dean’s own the hunter imagines they’re a laser, boring into him. It takes a moment, but Dean’s not entirely sure they’re talking about the same thing anymore.

“There’s you.” Dean’s voice is low, rattling up out of his chest like it’s been sitting there too long & got rusty. It’s an answer to Cas’ repeat that he’s somehow special, like some damned chosen one in one of those stupid fantasy movies Sam watches. Harry Potter he most definitely ain’t. But like Cas’ words, there’s a second layer. A different answer to an unasked question.

Cas is right there in his personal space, just like always. And Dean can easily remember every time Cas stepped in too close, but he can also remember bending over the angel’s empty shell on a kitchen table in an abandoned house. Bent close down over Cas’ closed eyes & still face as he wrapped him in cheap curtains for a shroud to burn. It makes his eyes water until he blinks the wetness away.

“I cannot do it alone.” Cas doesn’t move away & neither does Dean, but the hunter’s eyes slide away from that gaze. A few moments of silence fall heavily between them before Dean finally speaks.

“Yeah, well… I couldn’t either.”

And there it is. An admission, however incomplete, of just how fucked up Dean has become. He’d told Sam earlier that he wasn’t ok. That he felt lost. Faithless. That he didn’t believe in what they did anymore. Hell, there’d been a moment when that crazy doctor had his drill at Dean’s temple & he’d just… he’d just sat there. Waiting. Not fighting him off. If Sam hadn’t swung that crowbar…

He’d been willing to die & leave Sam to face that nightmare alone. When the ghosts had come out, he hadn’t even questioned it. He just grabbed the needle & stabbed himself in the chest. He knew it was risky. Hell, it’d been reckless the first time. One of these times, his heart wasn’t going to let him come back, regardless of what drugs were pumped into his system.

And the simple fact that he hadn’t been upset by that notion?

Dean tries to push away from Cas, but the angel holds him close. “Dean…”

There’s water in Dean’s eyes again, wet & salty. He tries to resist when one of Cas’ hands moves up to cup the side of his face, but he just winds up pressing into the touch instead. The other hand joins the first, his face framed by Cas’ palms. The angel is blurry in his vision, too close & not close enough.

“You will take care of yourself, Dean Winchester,” Cas says, voice firm & still for all that it’s no more than a whisper. He’s heard that tone before.  _You should show me some respect._  “You will take care to keep yourself alive. You will learn…” Cas stops, a thumb barely catching the corner of Dean’s eye. It’s enough though – the drop brimming right at the end finally spills over the edge & falls down Dean’s cheek.

“You will learn to value yourself.”

Dean’s eyes fall closed & it’s like it takes nothing to just let Cas hold his weight for a moment. Dead weight. That’s what he’d been thinking of himself as for Sam. For himself. The dead weight of all they’d lost. All he’d lost.

But some of that was gone with Cas standing in front of him. Not all of it. Mom. The kid from tonight. Himself. Dean could feel himself still standing right on that edge, teetering. Billie’s words echo in his mind.  _You wanna die. But I say, keep living_. But he doesn’t know if he remembers how to. Not like he needs to.

Cas is back. And while Dean can’t even begin to put into words what that does inside him, he also can’t deny that he’s scared shitless. Scared of losing him again. Especially now that… that he’s admitted, at least to himself, what the angel means to him.

“Cas, I… I don’t…”

“You will learn, Dean,” Cas says, interrupting him. Dean looks at him, fingers plucking at the sleeves of that trenchcoat that he’d almost kept before burning Cas’ body by the lake. He’d actually pulled one of Cas’ arms from the sleeves before stopping himself. He’d kept it when Cas died in so much black slick on the water, the Leviathan tricking his mind away.

He’d wanted to keep it like then. To have something to hold on to. But even at that moment, he’d known – he didn’t want to hold on. Not to anything. Keeping the coat as a memento would mean he intended to live & remember.

Dean takes a shuddering breath as he realizes just how long the feelings that had led him to giving up without a fight when Billie came to call earlier had been building.

“You don’t know that, Cas,” Dean says, his chest aching.

“You will learn to value yourself,” Cas repeats. “Because I will teach you.”

And Dean knows that’s not the end of it. He’s not miraculously better. Not healed. Not by a long shot. Even when Cas presses forward, the first kiss between them tinged bittersweet & not anything like Dean had ever dreamed or hoped for, Dean knows.

“Cas…”

“Shhh. Tomorrow.”

Dean collapses into Cas’ hold completely at that, allowing the angel to haul him to the bed & lay him down, Cas’ arms warm & firm & real around him. For the first time in what feels like years, Dean slides into sleep not dreading the idea of  _tomorrow_.

END


End file.
